


I Only Come Home

by Verasteine



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Domestic Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-19
Updated: 2010-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:17:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verasteine/pseuds/Verasteine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU. They met in university, and Arthur never said a word. Now, his life is spinning quietly out of control, and Merlin is halfway around the world, unaware of everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Only Come Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is, up till now, the longest fic I've ever written, fanfic wise. There's a longer one in the works, but until that finishes, this stands. I conceived of the idea for this fic ages ago, and thought I'd never write it, because it would be too long for me. Turns out I was wrong. This fic owes a great deal to the unfailing support of my betas, Lefaym and Misswinterhill, who both gave a lot of their time to look over several versions of this. You've both made it better than I thought it could be. To Kilawater, thank you for listening, and for your support, unwavering as it is. The next one's for you.
> 
> Lyrics at the top belong to Sheryl Crow, from her song, "I Shall Believe".

> _I'm broken in two.  
> And I know you're on to me,  
> that I only come home when I'm so all alone..._

"Father," Arthur says at seventeen, bags packed for university and in response to an off-hand comment Uther just made, "I don't think I'll be bringing _girls_ home."

It's the most cautiously he's ever phrased anything, because Arthur Pendragon doesn't really do cautious on a sunny day, and he's holding his breath with more fear than he's ever felt since he faced down Bobby Williams at fifteen, who was nearly twice his size, but had needed taking down.

Uther, for his part, looks up and meets his son's eyes, gives a sort of barely-there smile, and replies, "It's up to you, Arthur. If you want to focus on your schoolwork, all the better. After all, you will hold an important position in the company once you graduate."

And for years, Arthur isn't sure if his coming out to his father was ever actually a coming out.

\--

He tells Morgana eventually, after she already knows. He tells her because she's come up to the landing one morning to find a young man leaving whose name Arthur can't remember barely a month after. The raise of her eyebrow and her quietly challenging expression will stay with him for years.

So he yanks her into his room and hisses, "Yes, I'm gay, all right? Does it _matter_?"

She smiles and kisses his cheek and only says, "I thought you were bi."

He stares at her, in complete disbelief.

"You could never stop checking out that window washer boy." Her hand is on his arm briefly, and it's the most compassion he'll get from any member of his family for years.

\--

He meets the man he thinks is the love of his life in his second year. Brandon is athletic, gorgeous, with dark eyes and olive skin and stamina in bed and everything Arthur dreamt of. Their affair is as stormy as both their tempers, and Arthur makes the decision after three whirlwind months to end it before their bruises become more spectacular than the sex. Brandon hits back, but Arthur's thrown the first punch most of their fights, fingers itching and nails digging into his palms, and he knows, somewhere, that he's in deep trouble and needs to get out.

Christmas at home, a scant two days later, Morgana is the one who finds him in the bathroom, palms pressed to his eyes to stop the tears from leaking out.

Uther never says a word about his red-rimmed eyes, and doesn't say anything about girlfriends, either.

\--

He meets Merlin a month before graduation, when his life is reduced to studying, the occasional parties and the one night stands that have become his way of stress reduction without commitment.

Merlin is ethereal, looking fragile and brittle, and totally not Arthur's type, and opens his mouth and turns out to be an _idiot_.

Yet Arthur falls hard, feeling the thump of his heart reflected in the impact Merlin makes on the cafeteria floor when he slips gracelessly at Arthur's feet.

\--

Merlin fills Arthur's world with _something_, and through that he discovers there was a part previously filled with _nothing_. Merlin is accepting when Arthur is doubtful, bright and bouncy when Arthur is quiet and drawn, and lets him study for finals at Merlin's room. When Merlin stretches out on the floor, books around himself, Arthur looks down at him from Merlin's desk chair, raising an eyebrow.

"What?" Merlin asks. "I'm fine."

"You could just ask me to leave," Arthur says.

"Why would I want you to leave?" Merlin replies, and shrugs.

Arthur doesn't really want an answer to that question at all.

\--

Merlin breaks his heart.

"I'm going to America," he says one afternoon, smiling broadly at the spring rain outside the cafe's window. "There's this professor there, he's awesome, and he's accepted me as a student, and I'm leaving in a few months."

And Arthur sees the glow on Merlin's face, the happiness he envies so much, and thinks about London and Albion Industries and everything that he knows is mapped out in his own life. "That's great," he tells Merlin instead.

Merlin's blue eyes turn to him and for a moment Merlin just looks, and Arthur shifts in his seat. "So, you're going to work for your father?" Merlin asks.

"Yes," Arthur says. He waits for the familiar replies, the _that must be great_, the _he must be very proud_, and the _nice work if you can get it_.

"Do you want to?" Merlin says.

\--

Then it's graduation day, and they're both getting their degrees, and Merlin is staring and smiling a little dreamily at Morgana's friend Gwen, and Arthur's heart plummets into his shoes, although it didn't have very far to fall.

Everyone says their goodbyes and Merlin holds out his hand and Arthur shakes it and never says, _never_ says a single word about maybe wanting more than friendship.

\--

London is crowded and impersonal and the work keeps him busy. Albion Industries is a military contractor, the largest in the UK, and Arthur slips effortlessly into the role of procuring everything the British Army needs. He ignores the way everything hollows him out, from the friends who aren't friends and sucking up to the boss to the business partners who invent things that kill people.

Some nights, he dreams of Merlin.

He drinks more than he should; he sleeps too little. Morgana says, "I'm worried about you," to him one night, when she shows up unannounced at his flat, and he knows it's the only warning he's likely to get.

\--

Work has a way of taking your mind off things, too, and he lets it usurp him, with long hours and weekends spent at the office, and he doesn't drink so much any more because there is no time. Uther is proud of his commitment, and Arthur tries not to let that buoy him up, but it does.

Exhaustion leaves some room for error, but tried and true methods of relaxation help. He dates, a sales rep named Brian, a bank officer named Tom, a stock broker named Ahmed. No one lasts.

Then comes Tony, an insurance lawyer, who seems generous and nice and actually manages to pry him away from his desk sometimes.

But it's hard work, keeping Arthur's attention, and when the first glow wears off and they start fighting, Arthur's fingers itch, and he can't hold back his punches.

\--

Morgana tries to guess at what broke them up, and fails.

"Did he cheat?"

Arthur says nothing, continues typing on his computer.

"Did you cheat?"

"Morgana," he says, patience thinning.

"You work too much."

"Yes," he replies, snapping his head up to look at her. "I work too much. That's it. Now go."

"Arthur..." she says, and she's not looking at his face.

He knows with sudden clarity that she's staring at the finger marks on his throat, instead.

\--

Gwen's getting married and he's half expecting Merlin's to be the other name on the card. Instead, it's some guy named Lance whom he's never met, and Morgana ropes him into going to the bachelor party.

Lance is a decent bloke who gets football and racing and Arthur can hold a conversation with him. Lance is nice without being overbearing and welcoming without being demanding, and Arthur _likes_ him in a way he's liked few people in his life recently.

After a sickeningly sweet spring wedding and a honeymoon to somewhere distant and obscenely expensive, Gwen invites Arthur to a dinner party, and doesn't try to fix him up.

He's more grateful to her than he should be.

\--

There's enough willing men in London to keep Arthur's libido in check, and he's got so used to working the gay scene that his record pick up is seven minutes.

No one is allowed to stay the night.

\--

His father promotes him, makes him go abroad a lot. Arthur loses himself in the travel, the languages, the mind-numbing minutiae of contracts and social networking.

On a trip to Japan, a young white woman shows up at his hotel room, and after a moment of jet lag induced fuzziness, he realises she's a prostitute, hired for him by the manufacturer wanting their business.

He invites her in and kisses her, and doesn't do anything more because it does nothing for him.

He pays her to keep quiet about it, too.

\--

The French drink wine and the Germans drink beer and the Scandinavians offer something cold that's unpronounceable, but it's the Russian vodka that makes him realise he likes alcohol a bit too much.

It doesn't stop him drinking.

He's cautious, drinking only before bed, after a deal, on the flight back, when he's at home.

The alcohol takes the edge of a life he can't always see the purpose of.

\--

No alcohol in the middle east, no young men to pick up either, and Arthur is there for two weeks and goes stark raving mad.

A few deals go sour, a bomb goes off down the street from his hotel in Gaza, and he nearly gets mugged in Baghdad.

He flies home and picks up several bottles of rum in the duty free.

He doesn't see daylight again for two days.

\--

His father gives him a stern lecture, staring down at Arthur sitting on his own bathroom floor, empty bottles lying around him, one of them shattered.

"Pull yourself together. You will get yourself some help. This is no way to behave at twenty-four, Arthur."

Arthur blinks up at his father and wants aspirin, and something to make the pain go away.

"If you have... substance abuse problems, we'll sort them out. This sort of juvenile behaviour has got to stop, do you understand me?"

Arthur nods vaguely.

His father calls a doctor who recommends something. Arthur isn't conscious enough to find out what it is.

\--

He goes to group therapy every Friday night, and hates it.

These people are not him. Not the banker who can't cope with stress, not the mother whose crying baby drives her up the wall, nor the husband who spent ten years battering his cowering wife. None of these people are him. The only thing they have in common is that they all drink to forget.

Arthur stops drinking.

He stops going to therapy, too.

He doesn't stop feeling hollow inside.

\--

Sex turns out to be a pretty good alternative to alcohol. For a while. So is betting. But Arthur knows the signs of addiction now, and stops himself when he threatens to spin out of control.

This time it's Lance who tells him he's worried about him.

Arthur says, "I'll be fine, mate," and drinks his first beer in eighteen months.

\--

Morgana drives him to hospital.

"I won't tell your father," she says as he leans heavily against the admin desk. "I'll tell him you had to go see a friend in America--" Arthur winces "--or something, that there was an emergency."

Arthur stares blearily at her.

She reaches up and touches his cheek. "I don't want to watch you do this to yourself, Arthur."

It's the first time he realises that, while he may be hurting, others are watching him hurt.

\--

A week later, and he's sober and staring alternatively at institutional-green walls and his counsellor, refusing to say a word to either.

"Fine," the man says. "But nothing's going to change if you don't make it happen."

Arthur mulls that over in his mind for another seven days. The day before he's due to be released, he says, "I think I hate my father a little."

His counsellor considers it progress. Arthur does not.

\--

He tells Lance and Gwen one night, about Brandon and Tony and the way his nails dug into his palms when his fingers itched. He doesn't know why he tells them; maybe because they're kind and still invite him for dinner and make sure there's mineral water in his glass; maybe because Gwen is smiling and maternal and actually touches him from time to time; maybe because Lance is a good listener, who lets him finish before allowing emotions to show on his face.

Gwen says, "It's good you recognise it's your fault."

Lance says, "I think you need help, Arthur."

Arthur looks at them both. "I'm sorry," he says, and slides off their sofa onto the floor, trying to keep the tears inside.

\--

First business trip in ages, and it's America he goes to. Everything around him is alien and yet similar, and at least he can understand what's said around him.

Alcohol is everywhere, too. He becomes aware of how many people have carefully kept things away from him, and how ruthlessly he's cut it out of his life.

It's a struggle, not to drink.

He watches mindless television and works hard and ignores everything else around him.

\--

He's at the airport to fly back home, when it hits him, where he is.

_America_.

He remembers Merlin's hands, suddenly, while the queue around him moves forward and he takes a step forward with them; Merlin's hands sketching possibilities in New Haven or some place, Merlin's eyes shining as he talked about the professor he'd been corresponding with, that rainy afternoon, Merlin, Merlin, Merlin, until Arthur is dizzy.

He steps out of the queue and goes into the men's room, splashes water on his face. He stares at himself and says, "People don't do that. Only in films. People don't do that."

He walks out.

He ignores the queue he was in and goes to the car rental desk.

\--

It's a ridiculous idea, to go traipsing through a foreign country with no idea of where to go and whether that person still even lives there.

He drives down to New Haven, Connecticut, anyway.

He makes his way to the campus. He goes into the library. A helpful librarian pulls records and finally shoves a yearbook under his nose.

"Merlin Emrys," she says, putting her index finger next to a postage stamp sized image of Merlin, unmistakably Merlin, grinning at the camera. "Class of 2007. Graduated with honours, Master's in Philosophy."

Arthur holds his breath, staring at that tiny photograph. "Where is he now?" he asks.

The woman looks at him. "I've no idea, honey."

\--

The ageing professor Merlin studied under is long gone, too, and Arthur drives to the nearest airport and flies home. Morgana picks him up from Heathrow, throwing her arms around him as soon as she sees him.

"Arthur!" She punches his upper arm as soon as she's let go. "Where the bloody hell were you?"

He bites his lip and doesn't answer. "Sorry," he manages.

"We were worried _sick_. Your father called the embassy in Washington when you didn't fly back. Jesus!"

"Sorry," he says again, and finds that he totally isn't.

\--

Gwen's emailed him websites on domestic violence counselling while he was away, and he gets so angry at her he yells until Lance throws him out of the house.

If ever he needed a sign, that is one.

Lance calls him the next morning, telling him that in stern words, adding, "You're welcome back, if you apologise to Gwen. You were way out of line, mate."

"I know," Arthur replies, and means it.

He apologises to Gwen. He also signs up for the counselling.

\--

"So Merlin says--"

He's pushing his food around his plate, barely listening to the conversation around him, and Lance has long since abandoned attempts to talk to him and is chatting amiably to the young woman sitting on his right side instead. Arthur's head shoots up and he stares at Gwen and says, "_Merlin_?"

A hush falls over the dinner conversation all around the table.

"Yes," Gwen says carefully, exchanging a worried glance with Lance. "Sit down, Arthur."

It's then that he realises he's standing and he's knocked his chair over.

\--

"Merlin's back in Oxford," Gwen says after the party, serving him coffee in her and Lance's homely kitchen. "I thought you knew that."

Arthur can't think. The world is spinning. He wants a drink.

He takes a deep breath and a sip of coffee instead. "I didn't know," he replies, and his voice sounds hoarse and broken to his own ears.

"Arthur," Gwen says, putting her hand on his arm. "What's so important about Merlin? You didn't even know him that well."

\--

He gets Merlin's address from Gwen, and drives to Oxford next Sunday afternoon. His hands are sweaty on the steering wheel and he's squinting against the low autumn sun, and he has a pounding headache by the time he gets there.

An old man opens the door, and Arthur wants to pound his head against the wall. He can't have come this far and yet be in the wrong place again. He can't do this any more. He can't.

"Gaius?" comes a voice from somewhere inside the house. "Gaius, who is it?"

Arthur knows that voice. Arthur knows that voice because it plagues his dreams.

Merlin bounds down some stairs into the hallway behind the old man, graceless, nearly slipping on the last step, righting himself at the last moment. He's wearing jeans and an ill advised plaid shirt, and he squints against the light.

"Arthur?" he says.

\--

After an awkward moment or two, Arthur buys them coffee in a cafe down the road, and Merlin sits across from him, same smile on his face as Arthur remembers, and he has no words at all.

"Er..." Merlin says, twirling the plastic spoon in his cup.

"I wanted to see you," Arthur blurts out.

Merlin looks at him, blue eyes wide with surprise, and Arthur closes his mouth again.

"I mean," he tries again, "I would like us to be friends."

\--

Next time he sees Merlin it's at one of Gwen's dinner parties, and Merlin is sitting on the other end of the table and Arthur barely gets to say two words to him. He's distracted, but that's nothing new, and he wants a glass of wine so badly he offers up his glass when Lance walks past with the bottle.

Lance shakes his head, putting his hand on Arthur's shoulder. "Don't. Don't, Arthur."

Suddenly there's a voice behind him. "Don't what?" Merlin asks.

\--

"I'm an alcoholic," Arthur says to Merlin on Gwen and Lance's balcony, and watches Merlin frown.

"Okay," Merlin says slowly, stretching out the word. He scrubs a hand over his chin and blinks a moment. Then he adds, "Were you always one? I can't remember, in uni, we went drinking, right?"

"Yes, we did," Arthur replies with a sigh. "Merlin..."

He doesn't know how to say _I like you_ and _I'm sorry_ and _forgive me_. There are no words any more, nothing but a deep sense of failure and the wrenching ache in his chest.

\--

He winds up in a bar three nights later, after a long night at the office and a discussion with his father that Arthur would call a fight. He sits at the bar and orders a beer, but doesn't touch it. He orders a coke, drinks that, and calls Morgana.

"Why does he love you more than me?" he asks her. "You're not even his own daughter."

"Arthur," she replies, voice carefully neutral, "are you drunk?"

"No," he says. "I wish I was, though."

"Where are you?" He tells her. "I'll come get you," she says.

\--

He sleeps in Morgana's spare room for two nights and calls in sick to work. He ogles her expensive liquor cabinet for two days. He pours himself three drinks, and pours all of them down the sink five minutes later.

Morgana watches him.

"Would you let me drink them?" he asks her.

"I don't know," she says. "I don't think you should try just to find out, though."

He stares at her, uncomprehendingly. Then he bursts out laughing.

\--

"I'm sorry," he says to her when he finally leaves again. "Whatever happened, it's not your fault."

"I know that," she replies, her hand warm on his arm. "I've always known that, certainly sooner than you did."

"Yes." He shuffles his feet, awkward. "You know you're my sister, right?"

She smiles and nods. "I knew that before you did, too."

He grins at her. "Take care of yourself."

"You, too," she says, and kisses his cheek after he's shouldered his bag.

He's halfway down the first flight of stairs when she calls for him. "Arthur!"

He stops and looks up. She's leaning perilously over the railing.

"It's not your fault, either," she tells him.

\--

It's back to Russia, and he can remember, smell, _feel_ the burning taste of the vodka around him. He turns down drink after drink and nothing is easy. No deals are easy. Nothing goes well; he's tired and his mouth tastes like ash and his head is pounding.

It's either a shot of Russia's best, or picking up the phone, so he opts for the latter.

"I don't know why I called you," he tells Merlin. "Just that I needed to."

"Arthur, what's wrong?" Merlin asks.

The warm note of concern leaves him unable to speak for nearly twenty seconds.

"Arthur?" Merlin says down the line.

"I'm here," he croaks. "Merlin..."

"Yes?"

"Tell me not to drink."

"Don't drink," Merlin parrots obediently. Then adds after a pause, "Does it work that way?"

Arthur sighs. "No."

\--

"I hurt people," he says to Lance when they go for a coffee one night.

Lance takes a sip of his cappuccino before setting it down on the table. "The English language doesn't allow for clarity in this case," he replies. "Did you mean recently, now, or in the past?"

Arthur shrugs. "I don't know."

"Nicely ambiguous," Lance says. "The English language has its uses."

Arthur laughs. "Like fifteen ways to tell you to fuck off?"

Lance grins and knocks his paper cup against Arthur's. "That, too."

\--

He's typed Merlin's number into his phone so many times he's lost count. Words fail him and he's too much of a coward to stumble through things on the phone, so he never actually dials.

He hasn't seen Merlin in three weeks. Having him an hour away in Oxford is so much harder than believing him to be in another country.

In his dark moments, he knows he doesn't have Merlin at all.

In his darkest moments, he knows he'll never have Merlin at all.

He stares contemplatively at a razor blade for twenty minutes.

He goes out and flirts with a pint on the bar of a nameless pub.

He brings home a shag instead.

\--

"I don't know why I hit people," he says in therapy.

The rest of the group is either staring at the floor or looking eight inches to the left of his face.

"What do you mean by that, Arthur?" the counsellor asks.

He looks at her, tries to meet her expectant gaze without flinching. He breathes out when he succeeds.

"I don't know," he says, trying to find words that don't even exist in his head, "what causes me to do it."

She still looks at him with that blank, composed stare, waiting for the words that his mouth can't form.

"No one ever hit me," he grits out with a flash of anger. "No one hurt me; I didn't watch my father hit my mother; I didn't play the wrong sort of video games; no one beat me up in school. I don't know _why_."

She nods. She doesn't give him an answer.

\--

Morgana is celebrating her birthday, and Uther is there, and Morgana's friends from uni and their husbands who all work in the city, and the party is big and anonymous and Arthur is going quietly insane.

There's champagne, though, and he snags a glass from a passing waiter and slips outside onto Morgana's balcony.

He drinks it, slowly, appreciating the taste and the warmth and never fooling himself that it's just one glass, and look, he can do moderation.

He doesn't get roaringly drunk, either.

He goes home early and throws up in his own bathroom.

\--

He calls Merlin in the morning.

Merlin answers in a chipper voice, full of the enthusiasm for Saturday mornings that Arthur only sees in other people and doesn't understand.

"Merlin," he says, and his voice is dark, threatening, to his own ears.

"Arthur!" Merlin says in an eager tone that makes Arthur think _idiot_, even as it makes him smile.

"So," Arthur manages, "wanna grab a coffee or something?"

"Let's do lunch," Merlin suggests. "I need to be in the city today, so pick a nice place and give me directions, and I'll be there."

Arthur does.

\--

Merlin's twenty minutes late and slides into his seat with his mouth already telling the story of a tube mishap that waylaid him and his hands gesticulating as he explains the flower vendor who gave him the wrong directions when he was lost.

"Anyway," he says breathlessly, unwinding a scarf and stripping off gloves and shoving them into overlarge pockets, "I'm here now."

"Yes," Arthur says, trying not to let the ridiculous grin that's creeping up on him show too much. "You are."

"Good to see you again," Merlin says, and smiles, and Arthur's heart thumps again, with a sting of pain-pleasure, and he can't control it, and he balls his hands to fists under the table.

\--

Merlin talks, and talks, and asks about Arthur's work and talks some more, about cricket and weather and philosophy and the city and the state of the economy, and Arthur watches his slender hands move and his eyes light up and his mouth shape the words and thinks _I want this_.

He answers Merlin's questions but only has half his mind on the conversation. Merlin says, "...so I did. Isn't that nuts?"

"Huh?" Arthur manages distractedly.

Merlin laughs. "Yeah, didn't think you were listening. I didn't wander off with a dragon, Arthur."

Arthur can't remember Merlin mentioning dragons. "What did you say?"

"_That_. To see if you were listening."

"Sorry."

"Yeah," Merlin says. He smiles, his eyes crinkling, and Arthur wants to kiss him.

Instead, he says, "Come out to dinner with me."

"Yeah, all right," Merlin replies.

\--

Dinner is intimate in a way that lunch isn't, and Arthur can't find the things he wants to talk about so he talks about work instead.

"Arthur," Merlin groans after half an hour, "shut _up_."

He closes his mouth with a snap, feeling his anger rise. "What?"

"Stop trying so hard," Merlin says. His right hand plays with the butter knife by his plate. "You don't have to impress me. I'm not some twenty-something secretary that needs convincing of your importance."

Arthur stares, then blurts out, "You know this is meant to be a date, right?"

"Yeah," Merlin shrugs easily. "I figured that."

\--

At the end of the night, he fumbles and isn't sure and pays for the dinner over Merlin's protests and then they're standing outside and it's cold, and Merlin is winding the scarf around his neck again, and Arthur doesn't know how to kiss him.

"_Arthur_," Merlin says in an exasperated tone, his huff of breath turning into mist under the sodium lights. He tucks the last end of his scarf into his coat. "Come here, you prat."

Arthur blinks, but lets himself be hauled closer, and Merlin leans in and kisses him.

He's dizzy and clearheaded all at once, and it's like everything he wanted and nothing at all, and Merlin's lips are chapped and his scarf itches against Arthur's skin, and he knows that he's inexorably in love, that he's made Merlin his salvation, and he pulls back.

"You don't know me," he says.

\--

"I want to know you," Merlin replies two hours later, fingers drawing pattern over Arthur's chest, and Arthur feels like the ache there is too big for his skin.

"I don't want to be that guy," he replies, lifting his head a little to look Merlin in the eye, "but you really don't."

"_Arthur_," Merlin's hand stills, "let me. Let me, and then let me decide, yeah? If I hate you afterwards, I'll tell you to your face, I promise."

It hurts, but it makes him laugh, quietly, in the dark of the middle of the night, in his own bed with Merlin warm by his side.

\--

Merlin is quiet when Arthur is loud, bubbly when Arthur is brooding, gentle when Arthur is harsh, and listening when Arthur can't find the words.

It's a small, quiet thing between the two of them, something Arthur won't yet expose to the threat of the world at large. It's brittle, like a small flame catching light between his cupped palms, something to shelter from harsh, cold wind.

He's learning fear so fast he needs something to hold on to.

He flirts with beers and driving too fast and hard words when Merlin pushes too soon. Merlin shouts back and refuses to be cowered and Arthur balls his hands to fists and feels nails digging into his palms and _knows_.

He's heading for the door before the thought is fully formed, and Merlin steps in his way.

"You don't get to walk out on this," he says, gritting his teeth, hair wild where he's scrubbed his hands through it in frustration. "_Arthur_."

"Let me go," Arthur replies in a low tone, and steps around him. He jams his hands into his pockets, and nearly stumbles when Merlin grabs his arm.

"We need to talk about this."

"Yes," Arthur grits out, not even remembering what _this_ is again. "But right now, you need to let me leave before I do something I'll regret."

Merlin is comically slow on the uptake, and then his hands fall to his side and his eyes widen. "Okay..." he says, hesitantly.

Arthur leaves before he can think of looking back.

\--

He calls Merlin two days later, when the urge to drown himself in alcohol has dropped to a degree that makes him reasonably sure he can walk down a street with a pub in it and not give in to the impulse.

Merlin agrees to meet him for a coffee.

Neutral terrain, and Arthur can't blame him. The fear is in his chest, along with the throbbing ache, but his mind won't let him be a coward. He sets the coffees on the table and sits down in front of Merlin.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before," he opens, and watches Merlin's wary eyes.

"Yeah," Merlin replies, sipping his drink and making a face when it scalds his tongue.

Arthur stares at the table, at the faux granite vinyl with its scratches and dents. "I'm not just an alcoholic."

He can sense Merlin tense in front of him, and looks up. Merlin's eyes are wide. "What are you trying to tell me?"

"That I..." Arthur has never had to say this before, not like this. He can count the people who know on one hand, and have fingers to spare. "I hit people."

Merlin swears under his breath. "People. Like boyfriends." It's not a question, for once.

"Yes." Arthur wraps his fingers around his cup for warmth.

"I-- I need to think about this," Merlin says.

"I know," Arthur replies.

\--

Merlin stays out of contact for a week, and Arthur drowns himself in work because it's the only safe thing he can drown in. Somehow, Morgana finds out and drags him out of his office on a Friday night, literally, with a hand fisted in his shirt.

She takes him home and cooks him dinner and they eat on the sofa, watching _Ice Age_ on the television. Arthur laughs for the first time in too long and falls asleep before he finds out how the film ends.

Morgana wakes him long enough to move to the spare room, and then he's out like a light again.

\--

Merlin calls and proposes dinner, and Arthur goes because he'll never say no.

"What happened?" Merlin asks.

Answering honestly is his only option, and yet talking is the hardest thing he's ever done.

"I don't know why," he says at the end, talked out and hoarse and tight. "I just don't know."

\--

Merlin doesn't make demands, or rules, or ultimatums. Merlin just says, "You know the difference between right and wrong. And I'll let you walk out next time."

As salvation or forgiveness goes, it's frightfully thin.

\--

He takes Merlin's phone call while he's in a meeting, and Uther doesn't let him forget about it afterwards.

Arthur listens and digs his nails into his palms as his father talks about responsibility and image and leading by example, and says quietly, "You don't know me at all."

Uther closes his mouth. "Pardon?"

Arthur shrugs, tired and worried about Merlin, and says with gritted teeth, "I can't be who you want me to be. I don't have the energy left to do it."

"Arthur," his father says, "I know you've had problems, but you've overcome them. You have a future with this company. I'd hate to see you throw opportunities away because you're being careless again."

Arthur puts his hands on the back of the chair he's standing by and lets his head drop between his shoulders. He looks up. "Father, I haven't 'had problems', I _have_ problems. They don't go away just because I manage them." He stops Uther's reply with a hand. "I'm an alcoholic. I'm in therapy. I'm gay. Whatever part of that you have a problem with, I don't care."

Uther is frowning and Arthur is wondering which part shocked him more.

"I can't be who you want me to be," he says again.

\--

Merlin looks suitably abashed when Arthur goes to pick him up from the hospital. His left arm is in a sling and he has cuts and bruises on his face.

"You got knocked down by a cyclist?" Arthur asks incredulously.

Merlin's grin is lopsided. "London traffic is too fast for me," he says mournfully.

Arthur smiles at him, at the warmth he feels at seeing Merlin, looking young and a little lost, sitting there. The fear, the shivering of the flame he still holds between his hands, it's there and it's trying to choke him, but Merlin is warm and breathing when he carefully folds his arm around Merlin's shoulders and helps him awkwardly with his coat.

Merlin reaches up and traces fingers over Arthur's cheek. "I'm okay, you know."

Arthur has to clear his throat before he can reply. "I know."

\--

"It's never going to be easy," Morgana says to him over the phone when he calls her that night.

He knows. He leans his forehead against the cold window and resists looking over his shoulder at Merlin dozing in his bed.

"Uther called me," she continues. "This afternoon, after you'd stormed out of his office."

Arthur feels tension creep into the line of his shoulders, but says anyway, "What did he say?"

"He asked if I'd known you were in therapy again," she replies. "And if I knew you were serious about being gay."

He almost laughs at that, but it lodges bitterly in his throat. "Did you tell him?"

"I told him I've known you were gay since you told me, and that he really should ask you." Morgana's voice is calm, practical. "He's never controlled me, Arthur. He knows he never will. But you..."

"Are you saying I let him?" he asks, not even feeling angry at anything.

"I don't know." She sighs. "He wants to live through you, wants to see you continue what he's built. He's proud of you, but he wants more. He's greedy."

"I don't know if I can do it." He's shocked to hear the words out loud, to hear his own voice, and feels the sense of failure that may never let go of him.

\--

He's still leaning against the window, staring out into the darkening night, when Merlin wakes.

"Come to bed," he says softly, and Arthur glances over his shoulder.

Merlin's hair is sticking up on one side and Arthur's t-shirt is a size or two too large for him, and he's shifting around his broken arm awkwardly. Yet he's more beautiful than Arthur's ever seen him.

There are words in his head, but he can't say them this time, because saying things makes them true and the fear, the small tiny flame quivers and threatens to blow out. He wants to stay frozen by the window, with Merlin in his bed and hurt, yes, but _safe_, with the cold and the dark outside and impervious.

Merlin reaches out a hand, and nearly loses his balance because of his arm in a cast. He frowns at himself and narrows his eyes when Arthur grins. "Come to bed," he grumbles, shifting the injured arm back against his chest.

Arthur goes over and strips down to his underwear before sliding into bed with him. He shifts Merlin against his chest over Merlin's protests, until Merlin quiets and settles, muttering, "Huh."

Arthur kisses his hair and tries to let the world be the world, outside.

\--

They go to a dinner party at Gwen and Lance's together, and there's a smile on Gwen's face when she opens the door and sees them standing there.

"Come in," she says warmly, and kisses them both on the cheek.

The dinner is easier than Arthur expected, Merlin not seated too far from him, and conversation flows more naturally. Lance and he talk about football and politics with some of the other guys and Arthur doesn't feel like trading his sparkling mineral water in for something stronger.

He and Merlin leave before it gets too late, and Arthur drives them to his flat and thinks of the weekend stretching out ahead of them.

When he kisses Merlin, the taste of wine on his tongue is like a shower of ice water.

\--

Merlin texts him on the Monday, a weird looking vibrating smiley followed by _ive nw phne_.

Arthur texts a regular smiley back.

At three, his phone rings. "Hey," Merlin says, "you're there."

"Yes," Arthur replies, and leaves the _idiot_ implied.

"I missed the bus."

Arthur flips through his date book in search of the reason why this concerns him, and replies, confused, "Were we getting together today?"

"No-o," Merlin says, "but it's _raining_."

"So?" Arthur leans back in his desk chair and smiles at the sound of Merlin's voice.

"I want sympathy, damn it," Merlin replies.

Arthur laughs.

\--

"I'm sorry about last weekend," he murmurs into Merlin's hair on Thursday.

Merlin pets him awkwardly with one hand. "I know. It's okay, Arthur."

He presses his nose in the hollow behind Merlin's ear and tries, tries to let things be. "Didn't mean for that to happen. Didn't know."

"Let it go, Arthur," Merlin says, and sighs.

"Sorry," Arthur whispers again.

\--

Morgana stops by unexpectedly one night while Merlin's there, and Arthur can't breathe any more when he sees her and Merlin talk to each other.

They're easy with one another, teasing and talking about him and they seem to like one another, and Arthur sits there and doesn't seem to be in the room at all.

He can't catch his breath because the flame is dwindling down to nothing, exposed to harsh air, and he can't see it, can't see the future that's supposed to just be him and Merlin, safely cocooned together.

Merlin is the first to give him an odd glance, Morgana follows.

After she leaves, Merlin turns to him and says, "What the hell was that all about?"

\--

They have an almighty row about it, where Arthur steadfastly refuses to say what he's thinking, steadfastly refuses to choke on his fear, instead pulling forward his anger and using it as a shield, until it's itching inside of him and he looks at Merlin and knows how this night is going to end.

Merlin has pulled his arm out of its sling in order to gesticulate better, spots of colour high on his cheekbones, eyes narrowed in wholly justified anger and Arthur feels himself shrink.

There are options. There's alcohol. There's his fist, smashing into Merlin's face and breaking his own heart. There's walking away.

He shakes his head because he likes none of them; he doesn't want the fear, the ache, the loss, any of it.

He leaves. He feels Merlin's eyes watching him.

\--

Merlin calls an hour later, and his voice is muffled as he says, "I'm still in your flat. Should I leave?"

"No," Arthur says, angrily, still feeling the tension usurp him to push out everything else.

"Arthur," Merlin says, and clears his throat. "I--"

Merlin's voice is wavering, and Arthur stops to punch the wall next to him. "This is not your fault," he grits out. "Don't you dare feel guilty."

"I'm not!" Merlin snaps. "You think I'm going to take responsibility for _your_ problems?!"

Arthur bends his head and takes a few deep, steadying breaths. "I don't know what this is. I don't know."

"Well," Merlin replies testily, "you better figure it out. I have no intention of playing your punching bag."

"I _wouldn't_," Arthur swears, but the words are feeble even before they leave his throat.

"Yeah, you would. A month from now, a year from now, you would."

He knows it's true.

\--

When he comes back to his flat the next morning, Merlin's gone, and he sweeps the contents off the dining room table in an attempt to feel better. It doesn't work, and he's left with shards of crockery and broken water glasses to clean up.

He calls Morgana.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"You better be. Because I don't fancy your boyfriend, and even if I did, we did nothing last night, _nothing_, that could possibly have made you think that."

She's righteously angry, and he has to concede that.

"I can't..." he tries, fumbling with words and the lump in his throat. "He'll leave," he finally says.

"If you go on like this, yes." She sighs. "Arthur, what are we going to do with you?"

\--

Merlin kisses him and takes him into the bedroom and strips him down and Arthur can do nothing but follow. He sits on the edge of the bed and watches Merlin, who's on his knees and kissing him.

He wraps his arms around Merlin's slender shoulders, and holds him close, warm against his body.

"You have to let me go," Merlin whispers between kisses. "You have to, Arthur."

He can't breathe in that moment, can't do anything but sit there and feel the sheer terror that lances through him. "No," he whispers back, choking. "No, Merlin, no."

Merlin pulls back, hand to Arthur's cheek, his eyes shining wet, breaking Arthur's heart. "You have to let me go in order to get me back, Arthur."

He kisses Merlin, refusing to acknowledge the words. They're true. They're oh so true.

When Merlin leaves, he contemplates all his options, from razor blades to pints of beer and anonymity.

None are attractive.

\--

Gwen tells him Merlin's accepted a temporary job in Canada, and he doesn't know what to do with himself. Everything is spinning, everything that he tries so hard to hold on to is shattering, and he's lost.

He doesn't have a soft place to fall so he goes to the one place he's always counted on.

He gets roaringly drunk and manages to make his way home in order to really crash.

He tells no one.

\--

He gathers his friends around him and listens to them making small talk. He listens to Gwen teasing Lance, Lance chatting about work with Morgana, Morgana asking Gwen about the new dress she's wearing.

Somehow, it doesn't feel too bad to sit there and listen.

He tries to picture Merlin sliding into this group, Merlin with his gestures and his smiles and his philosophy. Missing him is a stab through the heart; it's his cold bed at night, the sound of Merlin's voice, still echoing in every corner of his life.

"I'm thinking about quitting my job," he announces over Gwen and Morgana's discussion of the relative merits of Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik.

Three pairs of eyes look at him in startled surprise.

"Are you sure?" Lance asks.

"I think," Gwen adds, "that might be a good idea."

Morgana leans over and kisses his cheek. "Oh, Arthur," she says very softly.

\--

He hands in his resignation, and Uther stares across the desk at him in silent, fuming, dignified anger.

"You can't do this," he says, and his voice is ice cold.

"Yes, I can," Arthur counters, and breathes through his nose to contain his anger.

"You are to inherit this company." Uther stands to pace the space behind his desk and turns back to Arthur. He points a finger at his son. "This will all be yours one day to run, and you can't walk away from it to suit some whim!"

Arthur leans forward on the desk. "I don't _care_. I can't be who you want me to be, father. You can't make it so; you can't mould me into something I refuse to be. This isn't for me. It just isn't."

"I will disown you," Uther thunders.

"Go ahead," Arthur says, and walks out.

\--

He writes to Merlin, long pages of cheap lined paper in which he asks for Merlin's forgiveness and tells him how he's changed.

He doesn't mail the letter.

Instead he tucks it away into a dark corner of his desk and writes Merlin a short email.

_I quit. Going to do a proper job now. I hope you're happy over there. Come home soon. Arthur._

Two days later, Merlin replies, _Good plan._

\--

Morgana hooks him up with a friend of a friend and Arthur goes to work for an anti-landmine charity. He moves out of his rather spectacular flat and into a much smaller one, and gets rids of a lot of stuff he doesn't really need.

His work breaks his heart, but it's a good sort of heartbreak, most days.

He dates, briefly, half-heartedly. He calls his friends when he wants a drink, and lets Morgana or Lance or Gwen talk him out of it for just a half hour longer, until he feels better.

He misses Merlin with every step, with every foot he puts before the other.

\--

Merlin comes home and Arthur knows this because the day has been circled in red in his date book and he's been counting down for two weeks.

He refuses to go to the airport. He buries himself in work instead, and ignores the text from Morgana that tells him they're having a welcome home party at Gwen and Lance's.

His phone beeps when he's still in the office, well past eight. _Come and say hello, you prat._

He goes.

\--

Merlin opens the door, grinning widely at him. There's a bottle of beer in his hand and Arthur's heart sinks into his shoes.

But Merlin pulls him inside with a scathing comment or two, and Arthur can't help himself. He puts his hands on Merlin's shoulders and stills him.

"Are you back?" he asks.

"For good," Merlin replies, and leans forward.

Arthur reels back, glancing at the bottle.

Merlin smiles, all radiant and himself and Arthur can't breathe. "It's alcohol free," Merlin says like he's imparting a great secret. "Made Lance get it."

Arthur presses him against the wall and kisses him so hard Merlin lets the bottle slip out of his hand and shatter on the hallway floor.

\--

He wakes up with Merlin sleeping on his chest and wonders if anything is different at all. He slips out of bed quietly, and goes to the living room to make coffee.

Merlin comes in twenty minutes later, pausing in the doorway.

Arthur looks over his shoulder and smiles at him. "Hey."

"Morning," Merlin replies. "Brooding by the window again?"

Arthur bristles, but clamps his mouth shut. He turns to face Merlin. "This is never going to be easy."

"I know," Merlin says with a shrug. "It's harder on you than on me, though."

"I can't make promises," Arthur answers.

"I'm not asking for your fucking promises, Arthur," Merlin snaps back.

He turns back to the window and stares outside again. "Then what are you asking me for?"

He can't see Merlin's face, but he hears the sigh in Merlin's voice when he replies. "Your trust, maybe?"

\--

Gwen's celebrating her birthday and they go together, and it's one of those spring days where careful sunshine is peeking out from behind the clouds, and Merlin is in a chipper mood that grates on Arthur's nerves and soothes his anxieties all in one.

Lance hands him a coke and smiles across the room at his wife, and says, "How are you doing these days, Arthur?"

He shrugs, because he has no real answer to that question. He wonders how Lance lives with the fear of losing Gwen, every day.

Gwen is looking at the two of them and gives them both a smile. She leans in to Merlin and says something. He looks over, sketches a wave, and then gives Arthur the most dazzling grin.

\--

"Are you ever not moody?" Merlin says when they're back at Arthur's new flat.

Arthur is putting his coat up and uses that moment to hide his scowl. "Of course not."

"You are," Merlin accuses with a smile when he turns back.

"Shut up," Arthur says instead of arguing.

Merlin's expression falters. "Arthur..."

"I'm fine," he replies, and moves around Merlin to the window.

It's a half minute or so before he feels Merlin's warm palms on his shoulders. "I like you moody," he says, voice low, and leans his head against Arthur's own.

\--

"So, do you like, have a sponsor?" Merlin asks one night when they're having a quiet dinner.

Arthur chokes on his chicken masala. "I'm sorry?"

"For the alcohol thing. Do you have a sponsor?" Merlin makes a random gesture. "Like in films."

Arthur raises his eyebrows. "No."

"Oh." Merlin takes a sip of water. He gives Arthur a thoughtful look, a habit he's picked up lately. Arthur can't decide how he feels about it yet.

"Merlin," he says.

"Hmm?" Merlin sets down his water glass. "I didn't mean to pry."

_You weren't_, Arthur wants to say, but the words remain stuck.

\--

He lies awake in the morning. It's Monday, and Merlin is leaving again at first light. Arthur stares at his own ceiling and thinks and thinks and can't find answers no matter how many times he looks.

Finally, he reaches over and shakes Merlin's shoulder.

Merlin wakes up blinking, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Am I late?" he asks.

"No," Arthur replies with a smile.

Merlin pulls himself up a little. "Then what?" He blinks again, seeming to focus on Arthur's face. "Arthur? You okay?"

"Yeah." Arthur stares at his hands on the sheets.

Merlin lies there and watches him, waiting, patient.

"I had a sponsor. At first. It didn't really work for me," Arthur begins.

\--

"Who do you call now?" Merlin asks over breakfast.

"Morgana. Sometimes Lance or Gwen."

"Not me?"

Arthur smiles at the slightly crestfallen look on Merlin's face. "You haven't been around much, lately."

Merlin makes a face. "Does it help?"

"Most times," Arthur admits. "It's true that the only person who can stop you is yourself, but..." All explanations in his head don't make sense. "People care," he adds.

Merlin's hands freeze in the middle of spreading butter on his toast, and he drops his knife with a clatter. He looks at Arthur for a long time, eyes wide, until Arthur gets up to get away from the scrutiny.

"We'll be late," he says, swallowing.

\--

Merlin calls on the Wednesday, ranting and raving about some injustice at college that gave a job Merlin wanted to someone else, someone far less qualified, according to Merlin.

Arthur listens, to the cadences and melodies of Merlin's voice. "I'm sorry," he says when Merlin's done.

"_Thank you_," Merlin replies with great satisfaction, and Arthur bursts out laughing.

Merlin laughs, too. "Thanks, though. Talking to you always cheers me up."

Arthur frowns.

\--

He wakes to Merlin lying on his side, looking at him.

"What?" he asks, sitting up. "What is it?"

Merlin smiles. "I was just looking," he says defensively. "You were asleep."

"Yes." Arthur slides slowly back down into bed.

Merlin reaches out and runs fingers through his fringe. "Arthur..."

"Yes?" He's fighting to stay still, not to squirm or take hold of Merlin's hand.

"Would you freak out if I said I think I'm in love with you?"

Merlin's face is tense and Arthur reaches out to touch his fingers to Merlin's. "No."

\--

The phone call comes late on Thursday, and it's Morgana. He's at Gwen and Lance's, having coffee, and she says, "Uther's taken ill. He's in hospital."

The room spins for a brief second when he stands up too quickly. "What?"

"Uther's--"

"I heard you," Arthur cuts her off. "Where?"

"University," she replies. "I'm on my way there now."

\--

"He's had a heart attack," she says when he meets her in the waiting room. Her hair is a little undone and she's wide eyed, and he puts a hand on her shoulder.

"Morgana," he says, and finds no more words.

She squeezes his hand. "They can't tell us anything more yet."

\--

The phone rings once, twice, three times, and then it's answered with a muffled,"...rlin."

"It's me," Arthur says after a pause.

"Hi," Merlin replies. "Hang on a minute, I'm just..." His voice trails off and then comes back. "That's better. To what do I owe the honour?"

"It's my father," Arthur says. There's a weight on his chest and breathing is suddenly hard. "Merlin..."

"Do you want me to come?" Merlin asks at once.

\--

"_Arthur_," Merlin says an hour later when he arrives, urgent, hand on Arthur's shoulder.

Arthur tries to speak and can't seem to. Merlin pulls him in and Arthur presses against him, holding Merlin close and feeling Merlin's fingers card briefly through his hair.

When they come apart, Merlin says, "You look like shit."

Arthur huffs a quiet protest at that. "I do not."

"Yes, you do," Merlin replies with a smile. "It's okay, though."

\--

They sit together with the three of them through the night, and in the morning, Uther is allowed to see visitors.

Morgana goes in first.

She gives Arthur a reassuring smile when she comes out, and he steps into the room.

"Father," he says, seeing suddenly the age on Uther's face, in the paleness of his skin.

"Arthur," his father replies, and smiles.

For a moment, it seems like they have nothing to say to each other. Then Uther says, "You have to reconsider. I'm not going to be around forever."

Arthur is shaking his head, feeling like lead is slamming into his chest, but Uther continues, "Do it for me, Arthur. Please."

\--

He finds himself outside somewhere, an enclosed garden where there's a few straggling smokers and the darkness of pre-dawn.

He wants a drink so badly he can taste it.

The door opens and he says, "Go away, Morgana."

"I'm not her," Merlin says.

He turns to glance at Merlin before staring out at nothing again. "Go away."

"No," Merlin says.

"Stop being stubborn," Arthur snaps, "and leave me alone."

Merlin shakes his head. "I'm not going to."

"What do you want me to say, _Merlin_?" he shouts, rounding on him. "That I have to tell my father, who may be dying, that I can't do the bloody job he wants me to because it drives me to drink? Or do you want me to say yes and are you here to promise me you'll pick up the pieces?" He breathes in cold air and hates himself. "You weren't around for the first few rounds and it wasn't pretty. It's not going to be any prettier the third or fourth time, believe me. You can't save me!"

"I wasn't planning on trying," Merlin bites back. "I've never tried to. So get off your high horse."

Arthur balls his hands to fists and grits his teeth. "There is no answer to this, Merlin. I make my father unhappy, or I make myself unhappy. There was never a middle road."

\--

He leaves the hospital and everything behind, walking and walking until he's not sure where he is and it doesn't matter anyway. He's turned his phone off after the third ring and he can't care.

He passes an off-licence and the pull is strong, so strong. He wants to walk in and get something to drink, just to take the edge off, something that'll pull him under and let him drown, until he surfaces in a world that doesn't look like the one he's in any more.

He thinks of his friends, he thinks of all the reasons why he shouldn't, he thinks of Merlin, of his father, of Morgana, that time she picked him up and got him sorted. The many times she picked him up and got him sorted.

None of it seems to be enough of a deterrent, and yet he's not going inside.

\--

It rains at some point, and he gets wet. It soaks through his coat into his shirt, and he can't bother to shiver. There's no alcohol in his bloodstream, yet, and he's seriously lost, but it doesn't matter.

He wonders if he could get drunk on the idea of drinking, the idea of alcohol.

\--

He turns his mobile on when dusk drifts over the city.

It takes a few tries to make his mouth move. "Merlin," he says at last when the connection is made.

"Arthur, where the fuck are you?" Merlin says, urgently, harsh, but so very warm.

"I'm sorry," he says automatically. He looks around and knows he has no idea where he is, but it doesn't matter.

"Are you okay?" Merlin asks.

"Yes." He breathes slowly, leaning against a nameless, faceless brick wall somewhere in this unforgiving city, with his clothes wet and the drizzle adding to it, and no alcohol, no alcohol in his bloodstream.

"You love me," he says to Merlin, and hears Merlin's startled, suppressed exclamation on the other end, and smiles. "You _love_ me."

"Yes, you prat," Merlin voice is tight. "Now get back here."

"Can't," Arthur replies. He slides down the wall to crouch on the pavement. "I... I didn't drink."

He catches Merlin's soft exhalation. "Good."

"I'll come back soon," he promises, and hangs up.

\--

There's a place near Camelot House, still on the estate's grounds, where there was a swing fashioned on the branch of a tall yew tree, and Uther used to take him there when he was little.

Arthur remembers being a little boy and reaching for the sky. He remembers jumping off as it got to its highest point, remembered rolling with the fall, coming up trumps and seeing his father's indulgent smile.

Morgana used to mope there, in her teenage years, and then it wasn't Arthur's spot any more.

Arthur walks and walks and keeps on walking, and thinks.

\--

His fingers are stiff with cold when he taps it out on the tiny keys of his phone, and he presses send because he can't not be brave.

_I love you._

His phone rings five minutes later, and he picks up.

"_Arthur_," Merlin says, and his voice is strangled, twisted.

"I don't know," he tells Merlin. "I don't know why, and how, and any of those things. I don't think I've ever known. And if I hurt you, _you_, then that's the end because there's nothing else left for me. I can't risk you. I--" The tears are suddenly stinging his eyes and he has to stop talking.

"Come back," Merlin whispers, and Arthur knows he, at least, is crying.

"I don't know how to love you, Merlin." He sinks down to the ground again. "I think I know how not to drink, and maybe how not to lose the plot and, and, and how to live without going mad, slowly, but you, you were always everything, and I _don't know how_."

"_Arthur_, please..."

He swallows hard. "It was always you. From the very first day. You smile and smile and you're more honest, more yourself than anyone. And I had to have that, all that love and affection for the world that you carry around."

Merlin doesn't answer.

\--

He finds a tube station and makes his way back, and he's damp and miserable and strangely light and warm.

He walks into the hospital and it's like nothing's changed, until he gets to the waiting room on the cardiology floor, and Merlin is there.

He freezes and can't move, and he wants to say Merlin's name, but can't.

Morgana sees him and puts a hand on Merlin's arm. Merlin looks up, and his eyes are red-rimmed, and Arthur can't remember the last time he cried.

Merlin cries all the time, gets dewy eyed at the weirdest things, and Arthur's heart is too large for his chest and hurting.

Merlin gets up, and Arthur has to move, has to go forward, until he's face to face with Merlin. "I'm sorry," he says, and searches Merlin's eyes.

Merlin nods. "It's okay," he says, and his fingers find Arthur's.

\--

He starts shaking with cold the moment he warms up a little, and Merlin takes him home. By the time they're near Arthur's flat, Arthur's exhausted and Merlin practically drags him into the hot shower, where Arthur stands still under the spray until he starts feeling again.

Merlin finds him, on the shower floor, shaking with tears and rage and grief, and Merlin ignores that his own clothes will get wet and curls around Arthur.

"It's okay," he says, and Arthur grabs hold of an arm that's tight over his chest. "It's okay, love."

Arthur wants, tries to shake his head, tell him no, but the tears leak out anyway and he can't stop.

Merlin lets him cry.

\--

He wakes up and his head feels stuffy, and there's a weight in his chest like mourning, and he gets up slowly.

Merlin is in his kitchen, munching on toast and leafing through the paper, and when he sees Arthur, he pours him a coffee and holds it out silently to him.

Arthur takes it, but the warm liquid doesn't make him feel human.

There are still words in his head that can't be said, that he can't explain or express, and he wonders if anything changed, at all.

Merlin looks at him, and he turns away from the scrutiny.

He feels Merlin's hand on his shoulder, the warmth of Merlin's body by his side. Merlin reaches out and forces him to face Merlin's eyes, and the soft kiss is nothing like the benediction Arthur was expecting. Instead, it's everything it always was, and it hurts, hurts in its brilliance.

\--

He takes Merlin to bed, kisses his skin, feels Merlin's hand anchoring him as he tries to lose himself while not letting go.

He wraps a hand around Merlin and brings him off slowly, lets Merlin reach out and reciprocate. He pulls Merlin to him and holds, just holds, lips against Merlin's shoulder.

Merlin says, "We have time, Arthur. You don't get rid of me that easily."

Arthur feels raw and hurt and aching, and he presses his forehead against Merlin's skin.

Merlin's arm curls awkwardly around him. "I love you."

Arthur closes his eyes.

\--

Uther comes out of hospital and Arthur is grateful Morgana is arranging everything, the nursing care, transportation, everything, because he can't.

He tells her that, and she smiles, wrapping her fingers briefly around his hand. "You're welcome, Arthur."

He nods, biting his lip.

"Go up and talk to him before you go," she says. "You can't move on until you do."

He climbs the stairs to his father's bedroom, and finds Uther reading the Financial Times.

"Arthur," he says, voice tired but calm, "have you seen this article about--"

"No, father," Arthur cuts him off, and stops by the door. "I haven't."

Uther frowns. "Arthur--"

Arthur shakes his head. "I can't do it. Find another heir if you must, if that's what you want, but I can't. If it makes me a coward in your eyes, I'll have to live with that."

His father sighs, then nods, expressionless. "If that's what you want."

Arthur wonders if he'll be done looking for salvation, one day.

\--

"Move in with me," he says to Merlin, first with his back turned to him, looking out the window, and again when Merlin comes closer and he gets the chance to wrap his arms around Merlin's waist and pull him back against his body. "Please."

"Hmm," Merlin replies noncommittally.

Arthur presses his nose into Merlin's hair and stares out at the rain. "We'll find a halfway point between London and Oxford, somewhere quiet, and you'll love it, and it'll just be us, it'll be great, I promise--" He runs out of breath.

Merlin's hand comes up to stroke his hair and slide onto his neck. "Yes. Okay. Ssh."

\--

Uther makes a full recovery and decides the way forward is to have dinner with Arthur and Morgana once a month, dinners where business is occasionally alluded to but not pushed in anyone's face, and as compromises go, Arthur learns to live with them because he has no choice, really.

Morgana comes out to his and Merlin's small cottage more often, and brings Gwen and Lance with her. Merlin cooks and smiles and tells stories of Oxford intrigues and politics, and Arthur sits back and watches him, and never quite, still, learning to live with the fear and the ache in his chest.

And if some days are hard, some are harder still, and very few are easy.

\--

He comes out of work and he feels the slide, inevitable, in his bones, and it almost takes him by surprise, and it's the sign he's wondered about and been looking for.

He hesitates with his key near the car's ignition, and instead pulls out his phone.

It takes two rings. "Hi."

"It's me." He leans his head back against the car seat and swallows.

"Yeah," Merlin replies, and the word _duh_ echoes around in his tone. "You running late?"

"No," Arthur says. He's swallowing again, around the lump in his throat and the heartbreak in his chest, and nothing, nothing is ever going to be easy. He doesn't know if that's okay.

"Arthur?" Merlin asks.

He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. "Needed to hear your voice." As confessions go, it's incomplete.

"Arthur," Merlin says again, and his tone is so warm.

"I--" His body curls tight against the words in his head, against saying things that will then be true, and against the pain that he can't let himself feel yet.

Merlin doesn't say anything, waits him out.

"I want a drink." He takes a deep breath, but nothing loosens. It's okay, he doesn't expect it to.

"Come home," Merlin says, voice sure and steady in his ear. "Come home, and I'll meet you there, and we'll figure it out, together."

Arthur can't breathe, right then, because the future is uncurling ahead of him, the future in that word, and his heart is breaking and knitting together again in the same second, and everything is too sharp and too much and right there.

His voice trembles. "I love you."

"Love you," Merlin replies, immediately.

"I'll be home in about forty minutes," he says.

"So will I."

He hangs up and starts the car, backing out of the spot.

There's a brilliant flame, burning small but strong between his hands, and he's keeping it safe, one day at the time.

\--  
_finis._


End file.
